They marched silently in single file, tracing the mountain pathways that had been worn smooth by thousands of pilgrims over hundreds of years. A shower of rain in the late afternoon had made the stones slippery, so they picked their way carefully and used their spears as staffs. Upon reaching the upper slopes they could see a large plain spread below them. A wide body of water lay beyond it, which Eperitus fancied led to the sea. Above them the sky was grey with the passing rain clouds; evening was closing and soon the moon would rise above the crest of the hills.
Castor and Halitherses were striding ahead of the rest of the group, who, after the exertion of the battle, were beginning to lag as the relentless march continued, their strained breathing filling the air. Eperitus, who was tiring of Mentor’s watchful presence only two or three paces behind, left his place in the file and stretched his pace out to join the two leaders.
‘Evening’s nearly upon us, Castor,’ he said as he caught them. ‘Are we to make camp or march into the night?’
‘Is the walk taking its toll on you?’ the Cretan grinned.
‘I can match you step for step, friend, unlike the rest of your men. Their arms weigh them down and the air back there is heavy with their constant sighing.’
Halitherses looked back and grunted. ‘Too much peace has made them soft. They’re good lads – plenty of spirit – but may the gods help them if they ever find themselves shield to shield in a real scrap.’
By now the chariot of the sun had slipped below the horizon and the detail was draining out of the world, making it difficult to be sure of their footing on the wet and smooth-trodden path. Despite this and the state of his men, Castor did not slacken the pace for one moment. It was clear he would reach the oracle at Pythia tonight, even if they did not.
‘It’s dark now,’ he said, ‘but the full moon will be up before long. The temple’s only a short march away and I want to be there before the Pythoness drinks one too many of her potions.’
‘You speak like you’ve been there before,’ Eperitus said, intrigued. For days on his solitary journey he had turned over the stories he knew about the oracle. Mount Parnassus was a magical and sacred place, full of mystery and terror. Returning pilgrims in Alybas had told of a fire-breathing hole at the heart of a mountain, guarded by a monstrous serpent, where men descended after offering a sacrifice to Gaea, the earth mother. Inside was the Pythoness herself, upon whom the goddess had bestowed the power to know all things past and present, and all the secrets of the future. Wreathed in smoke, she would speak in mysterious riddles that only her priests could interpret, whilst all around her the cloud of stinking fumes would shift to depict ghosts of ages past, or spectres of things to come.
‘Not into the oracle itself,’ Castor answered, ‘though I’ve waited outside while my uncles went in. They live here on the slopes of Mount Parnassus and consult the oracle two or three times a year. I came here in my youth to claim an inheritance promised by my grandfather, so I remember the place well.’ He looked about himself. ‘We hunted boar a number of times in these hills.’
Halitherses, who had taken the lead from Castor, called back over his shoulder. ‘Show him the scar.’
Castor paused to pull aside his cloak, revealing a long white scar that ran up half the length of his thigh from the knee. It was still visible in the fast-failing light beneath the thin canopy of trees, though Eperitus had not noticed it before then.
‘A boar?’ he asked.
‘Not just any boar,’ Castor replied. ‘It was a monster, a gigantic beast of untold years. His hide was thicker than a fourfold shield and you could see the scars of old spear thrusts through his coarse hair. Two great tusks jutted from his mouth,’ he held up his forefingers before his chin and glared boar-like at the young warrior, ‘as long and as sharp as daggers, though twice as deadly with his bulk behind them. But most terrifying of all were his eyes: as black as obsidian, burning with hate for all mankind. They were filled with the experience of a beast that’d outwitted more than one huntsman, and I knew I wasn’t his first victim. Though I was his last.’
‘Your uncles killed him?’
‘I killed him!’ Castor told him proudly. ‘I was the first of our party to see him charging out of a thicket with his breath clouding the morning air. Though only a boy, I threw my spear between his shoulders as his head was lowered at my belly. My grandfather and uncles tell me he was dead before he hit me and only the momentum of his great bulk carried his tusk into my thigh. As for me, he knocked my legs away and I hit my head on a rock. I woke up a day later with my wounds bound and every bone in my body aching.’
‘You were fortunate.’
‘Fortune has nothing to do with it,’ Castor snorted, turning to walk back up the path as his men finally caught up with them. He held open the inside of his shield, revealing a painted image of a maiden in full armour. ‘Athena protects me. I honour her above all other gods, excepting Zeus of course, and in return she keeps me from harm. She saved me from the boar, not fortune.’
Castor’s choice of deity intrigued Eperitus. Most men had their favourite Olympian, whom they prayed to more than any other and in whose honour they would make an extra offering at every meal. For sailors it was Poseidon, god of the sea; for farmers Demeter, goddess of the harvest; for craftsmen it was Hephaistos, the smith-god. Merchants would make offerings to Hermes to bring them good trade; young women would pray to Aphrodite to make them into wives; and wives would pray to Hestia, protectress of the home. The hunter would worship Artemis and the poet would dedicate his songs to Apollo. And Castor, like all soldiers, should have paid homage to Ares, whose realm was the battlefield. The ferocious god of war gave his followers a strong arm in the fight and, if it was their day to die, an honourable death surrounded by their fallen foes. Instead he chose Athena, the goddess of wisdom. She was the symbol not of brutality in battle – which all fighting men valued – but of skill with weaponry and warcraft. She gave her favourites cunning, resourcefulness and the ability to outwit their enemies, not the blood-thirsty joy of killing with which Ares endowed his followers. It seemed a strange choice for a man.
The moon showed her pockmarked face above the line of the hills, like a gigantic gorgon transforming the landscape to stone. The plain below their right flank remained dark, though the shard of water that pierced it sparkled like ice. Deep shadows stalked the silvered hillsides about the file of warriors, who were made conspicuous by their movement and glinting armour.
During their whole march they had barely seen more than half a dozen other pilgrims. Winter had just begun, of course, and it was not the season for travelling to and fro across Greece. Nevertheless, there would always be people who needed to consult the gods. Maybe fear of deserters from the siege of Thebes kept them away, Eperitus speculated, or perhaps the need for the gods was less urgent, now that the civil wars of Greece had all but ceased. Peace had brought prosperity and a brittle sense of security to the people.
Suddenly Castor brought his men to a halt, pointing up at the hillside ahead where trails of smoke drifted up through the treetops into the clear night air.
‘See?’ he said. ‘The oracle is up there.’
‘Thank the gods,’ groaned a voice from the back of the file. ‘My feet are dying beneath me and my stomach needs food.’
Castor was unmoved by the self-pitying complaints of his men.
‘We can make camp later. First I must see the Pythoness. Those of you who can wait until morning had better set up camp here, where you won’t gag on the smell from the fumes. And make sure Damastor doesn’t stand guard again, in case his snoring attracts another band of roaming deserters.’
The soldier who had spoken to Eperitus by the fire lowered his head as his comrades jeered him, their good humour surprising considering the danger he must have left them in by sleeping on guard duty that morning. Then they started to shed their armour and baggage, clearly having no intention of taking another step that night.
Castor threw a heavily muscled arm about Eperitus’s shoulders. ‘Meanwhile, you and I can go and question the hag about what the gods have planned for us.’
Eperitus watched the skeins of smoke trailing into the night air and quickly forgot his fatigue from the day’s trials. At last, he was nearing the oracle itself.
‘We’ll come with you as well,’ said Halitherses.
He was joined by a lean, grubby-looking man with hollow cheeks and a big nose. He introduced himself as Antiphus, and as Eperitus took his hand he realized he was missing his two bowstring fingers. This was the harshest and most effective punishment for hunting without leave on a noble’s land, and was usually meted out only to the low-born: by hacking off the index and forefingers the man was made ineffective as an archer. It was this that caused Eperitus to note with curiosity that Antiphus still carried a bow on his shoulder.
‘There’s a sacred spring ahead,’ Castor informed them as they walked up the slope towards the trees. ‘We should bathe there before we enter the temple.’
They walked into a circle of trees that stood about a wide, dark pool. Water broke from a rock on the far side, gurgling softly in the still night air. As Eperitus watched, the moon emerged from behind a veiling cloud and transformed the clearing with her ghostly light. He found himself in a dreamscape, a place of unmatchable beauty where the simple glade had shed its earthly guise to reveal a heart of magic. The moon’s disc moved in the water, wavering, slowing towards stillness but never quite achieving solid form. The boles of the trees became pillars of silver, as if the men had stepped inside an enchanted hall where the glistening pool took the place of the hearth and the whispering branches formed a roof over their heads. Not without reason was the spring considered sacred: Eperitus almost expected to see a deer leap into the clearing, pursued by Artemis herself, bow in hand.
Then Castor removed his cloak, armour and tunic and quickly lowered himself into the water. He was soon out again, replacing his garments. The others followed, each one flinching from the icy bite of the water, their complaints echoing about the ring of trees.
Slowly Eperitus scooped up handfuls of water and tipped them over his arms, shoulders and chest. The cold was sharp, initially, but as he became used to it he started to feel a new sensation tingling across his skin, like the breath of a god.
‘Don’t stay too long,’ Castor warned. ‘The gods tolerate bathers in the daylight, but the darkness is a time for water nymphs and other supernatural beings. Be quick.’
The water poured off Eperitus as he stepped out. He put his tunic back on and hugged his thick cloak about his body to keep off the chill night air. Yet at the same time he could feel a transformation: the tiredness had lifted and the bruising on his shin where the spear had hit the greave no longer pained him. He felt alive, alert and awake.
As they emerged from the trees they could smell wood smoke and roasting meat. They saw the glow of flames from a plateau further up the hill and scrambled their way up the slope to reach the blaze of several camp fires surrounded by clouds of moths, where groups of pilgrims had laid down their blankets for the night. They avoided looking at the warriors as they walked between their lighted circles, reluctant to attract the attention of the heavily armed men. Eperitus paid the pilgrims no mind either: he was engrossed by the large, pillared edifice ahead of him, built against a sheer face of rock where the mountain rose again from the plateau. A faint red glow came from inside, like a bloody wound cut into the dark of the night, and swirling out of the entrance was a trail of white smoke. They had found the oracle.
‘They won’t let you in now. They never lets you in after dark.’
They turned to see a young man dressed in a coarse black tunic with a fleece draped over his shoulders against the cold. He sat by his own small fire next to a pen full of goats. The animals were subdued by the night and lay pressed against each other for warmth. Occasionally a kid would bleat or the tangled mass of bodies would kick and shift as one of its members repositioned itself. The herdsman pointed up at the temple.
‘Just got a new Pythoness from the village. The ol’ one died, see, and this un’s only been at it a few weeks. Makes the priests a bit protective, it does, an’ they want ’er to get plenty of rest at night.’
‘She’ll speak for me,’ Castor responded. ‘I’ve got business that won’t wait.’
The herdsman smiled sympathetically. ‘You’ll be lucky to get by those priests, m’lord. I’ve seen rich folk, nobles like you lot, offer ’em a gold piece to see her after dark, but the priests just laugh at ’em. Say she’s special, is this’n, and they don’t want to tire her any more’n what they have to. Breathing them fumes all day takes years out of a Pythoness, so it does. The one what died looked old enough to be my grandmother’s mother, though in truth she were only a few years older than what I am. Those fumes rot the flesh as well as the brain, y’know.’
Castor turned and carried on up the slope. It was all the persuasion the others needed to leave the herdsman to his advice.
‘’Ang on,’ the herdsman shouted, springing up from his fire and running after them. ‘If you’re goin’ anyway, you ought to buy one of my goats. You can torture the priests and hold the Pythoness upside down by her ankles, but the goddess won’t speak unless you take her a sacrifice. Ain’t your lordships respecters of the gods?’
Castor grabbed the man by his tunic and pulled him close. ‘Don’t ever question my loyalty to the gods. Now, go and fetch me a one-year-old goat, pure black with no markings.’
‘Get me one, too,’ Eperitus ordered. If Castor could not wait until morning, neither would he.
The herdsman returned with an animal under each arm. The beast he gave to Castor was as black as night and wriggled like a hydra. Eperitus’s was brown and white and had hardly managed to rouse itself from sleep. They threw them over their shoulders and held them by their cloven hoofs.
‘Tha’s one silver piece for blackie, and six coppers for the other, sirs.’